Cell-based meat summit, Day 2

With help from Helena Bottemiller Evich, Catherine Boudreau, Liz Crampton and Eric Wolff

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IN THE HOPPER: President Donald Trump is heading to a major farm convention in Indianapolis this weekend, where he’s likely to tout some of his trade achievements. After months of trade pain for ag producers, farmers don’t appear to be abandoning Trump in significant numbers.

A top nutrition academic says starch, not sugar, is the top dietary problem to address. The Environmental Working Group is back with another batch of research on glyphosate levels in certain oat-based cereals, snack bars and granola. And a senior GOP senator says the Trump administration needs to either finalize its E15 rule in short order “or get off the pot.”

For starters: We’re heading back to USDA headquarters for another day of cell-cultured meat discussions …

TIME TO TALK CELL-BASED ‘MEAT’ LABELING: It’s Day 2 of the joint USDA-FDA public meeting on cell-based meat — or whatever we end up calling it — and today’s agenda is all about labeling, a crucial topic as supporters and critics of the burgeoning sector try to shape consumer perception.

The interagency event kicked off Tuesday with seven hours of presentations, public comments and promises of a collaborative approach to setting up a sensible, dual-agency regulatory framework for the industry.

Promising start? Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb vowed to work together, and work fast, to divvy up regulatory responsibility between the two agencies. Perdue said additional interagency meetings were on tap, and he suggested a regulatory framework might come together in relatively short order — as in, next year.

“If we can get this done in 2019, I think that’d be probably pretty fast for federal purposes,” he told reporters outside the meeting. Yours truly has that here.

Jurisdictional TBD: The public display of unity between FDA and USDA is widely viewed as promising, but it remains to be seen where the line will get drawn between the two agencies, even after a handful of tense interagency meetings about the issue.

Where the stakeholders stand: Consumer advocates, food researchers, meat industry groups and the startup companies developing the cell-based meat technology filled the auditorium at USDA headquarters in Southwest Washington. And many of their comments demonstrated the balancing act USDA and FDA officials will have to pull off to ensure the future food products are safe without stifling a fledgling industry.

Here’s what some of them had to say …

Cell-based startups: Memphis Meats, a major player in the cell-based protein space, reiterated its call for a two-pronged approach, with FDA taking the lead on pre-market safety of products and USDA overseeing production and further processing, much like it does for conventional meat products. “We are encouraged by the joint effort between USDA and FDA, in clarifying how both agencies would be involved in regulating cell-based meat,” said Eric Schulze, the group’s vice president of product and regulation, during the public comment period.

Hop to it: Schulze and other boosters of the technology urged the government to move quickly so other countries don’t leave the U.S. behind. “Without a clear, predictable, and timely framework, this industry cannot succeed,” he said.

No new rules: Supporters said FDA should oversee the technology under existing regulatory authorities. “No new regulation is needed,” said Jessica Almy, policy director at the Good Food Institute. “The presentations [Tuesday] have shown that the FDA has a clear and strong precedent to address safety premarket. The FDA can provide a single point of entry for regulation.”

Meat industry sees USDA as lead: Mark Dopp, senior vice president at the North American Meat Institute, argued that while the two agencies should work together, “primary jurisdiction regarding the regulation of cell-based meat products rests with USDA.”

Consumer advocates raised all sorts of regulatory and safety concerns to consider — like how to ensure the safety of additives used to grow the products and how to address consumption of uncooked cell-cultured meats. “They’re already being touted as clean meat, as being pathogen free. That could mean that they end up being consumed raw more than traditional meat,” said Sarah Sorscher, deputy director for regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Tune in: Interested in this policy debate? You can watch a livestream of this morning’s meeting at USDA here.

HAPPY WEDNESDAY, OCT. 24! Welcome to Morning Ag, where your host wishes everyone a happy World Pasta Day! (It’s actually on Thursday, but your host is celebrating early.) Did you know millennials in the U.S. spend more of their grocery budgets on pasta than any other generation, according to USDA? Send your news, tips and favorite pasta dishes to rmccrimmon@politico.com and @ryanmccrimmon. And follow the whole team @Morning_Ag.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SAYS A RED WAVE IS COMING ON ELECTION DAY. Is he right, or will the tide turn blue? Compete against the nation’s top political minds in the POLITICO Playbook Election Challenge, by correctly picking the winning candidates in some of the most competitive House, Senate and gubernatorial races in the country. Win awesome prizes and eternal bragging rights. Sign up today: Visit politico.com/playbookelectionchallengeto play.

WHAT’S NEXT ON TRADE IF DEMOCRATS WIN THE HOUSE? If Democrats flip the House in the midterms, they’ll have a greater ability to influence Trump’s trade agenda. The party might look to make small changes to the new trade pact the White House negotiated with Mexico and Canada — but members are unlikely to kill the deal and risk being blamed for any economic fallout, Pro Trade’s Megan Cassella said on the latest POLITICO Money podcast.

Anyone looking for stronger opposition to Trump’s trade battles with China and the European Union will also likely be disappointed. Plug in your headphones and take a listen.

NATIONAL FFA GETS TRUMP ON THE STUMP: Trump will give a speech to a crowd that’s expected to top more than 65,000 people at the National Future Farmers of America Organization’s annual convention in Indianapolis on Saturday. Perdue, who routinely attends FFA events and invites members along on his own travels, also plans to make the rounds at the convention, a USDA spokesman said. FFA is an agricultural education program for students in middle and high school.

A bit of presidential history: It’s an FFA tradition to invite the sitting president to deliver remarks. Trump is the first president since George H.W. Bush in 1991 to attend, the organization said, with Vice President Mike Pence and former first lady Michelle Obama appearing in pre-recorded greetings last year and in 2015, respectively.

Trade on the brain: Less than two weeks out from Election Day, Trump will likely focus on promoting his trade agenda, even as major trading partners like China, Canada, Mexico and the EU maintain retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods. Farm groups have urged the administration to remove U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, as well as end the trade dispute with Beijing, which has led to a combined $113 billion in U.S. goods being hit with countertariffs.

As harvests are underway throughout the U.S. grain and soybean belt, there are reports of plunging shipments to China and slower growth among U.S. manufacturers like Caterpillar.

Sticking with Trump: The trade battles don’t seem to be spurring farmers to abandon Trump in droves, however. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told reporters Tuesday that his own doubts about the president’s trade agenda have been allayed by the administration’s deal with Canada and Mexico to reboot NAFTA, and its plans to start trade talks with Japan, the U.K. and the EU early next year.

“During the period up until USMCA, and the doubt that farmers had, I still didn’t hear anyone saying they were done with Trump as a result of trade negotiations,” Grassley said. “I think they thought his goals were right. Now that he’s succeeded, I think it reinforces the fact that they’re going to stick with the president.”

STARCH AS THE NEW SUGAR: Sugar may be nutrition’s bête noire, but is starch next? Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, suggested Tuesday that starch (think pasta, bread, packaged snacks and rice) is the biggest dietary problem in the food supply right now.

“If I had to pick one harmful thing it would be starch — not sugar, but starch,” he said during a panel on food at the Milken Institute’s health summit in Washington. Mozaffarian has been spending more time on Capitol Hill to promote a new Food is Medicine working group, which takes its name from an emerging theme in the food and health space. (The goal, in a nutshell: Bring down massive health care costs by improving eating habits.)

It’s complicated: While he named starch as the top problem, Mozaffarian told the audience that the driving factors for diet-related disease are complicated. Still, he said members of Congress and staffers are constantly asking for the one thing that could be done to improve the American diet.

Sugar, sugar: Sugar was still a major point of discussion during the panel Tuesday, which was titled Food is Medicine. When Mozaffarian noted the food stamp program (aka SNAP) currently purchases 30 million to 40 million servings of sugar-sweetened beverages per day for low-income families, there were muted gasps in the room.

EWG GOES FOR ROUND 2 IN GLYPHOSATE FIGHT: The Environmental Working Group released today its second installment of research that found trace amounts of the herbicide glyphosate in common foods. The first report, released in August, sparked widespread media attention, as well as criticism, over its claims that breakfast foods popular with children contain trace amounts of the chemical and should therefore be avoided.

This time around, EWG zeroed in on oat-based cereals, snack bars and granola made by General Mills and Quaker. The nonprofit found low levels of glyphosate in 28 products tested, and deemed nearly all to have unsafe amounts of the herbicide. Note: EWG scientists used a much lower safety standard than the one EPA employs.

When the first report came out, Quaker and General Mills, along with other food companies identified, refuted its conclusions by pointing out the difference between EPA’s threshold and the standard EWG applied. In response, EWG said that “just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s safe” and pushed for EPA to further limit glyphosate residues and to prohibit its use as a drying agent on crops such as oats. Pro Ag’s Liz Crampton has more on the new report here.

GRASSLEY WANTS HIS E15 NOW! The senator wants the rule allowing year-round sales of 15 percent ethanol fuel to be released sooner than EPA’s promised date of May 1.

“EPA ought to speed it up, or otherwise it’s going to look like the president wasn’t serious about his announcement … two weeks ago,” he told reporters Tuesday. “We don’t need this sort of bureaucratic red tape with something that’s been discussed in Washington for years. Either do it or get off the pot.”

The Trump administration promised farm states the rule would be finished before summer driving season in June, but Grassley isn’t content to wait.

ROW CROPS

— Soybean slump weighs on North Dakota election: Low soybean prices stemming largely from Trump’s trade feuds could be a factor when voters cast ballots in North Dakota’s Senate race. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp has made trade a focus of her reelection campaign, and the slump in prices could be a liability for her GOP challenger, Rep. Kevin Cramer, a close Trump ally. CNN has more from Wimbledon, N.D. Campaign Pro’s Morning Score pointed out, however, that a rare poll in the race had Cramer up big — 56 percent to 40 percent.

— ERS, NIFA moves … just like Amazon HQ2 search? Perdue compared his plans to move the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture outside the Beltway to Amazon’s search for a second headquarters. (USDA has said that moving the agencies out of the D.C. area could help with hiring, while the Beltway is seen as a contender for the mega-company’s new site.) Your host has more here.

— China-owned Smithfield Foods eligible for trade aid: The Virginia-based pork producer, now owned by a Chinese conglomerate, can apply for a cut of the $12 billion USDA has set aside for farmers and ranchers affected by retaliatory tariffs. The U.S. subsidiary of Brazilian meatpacking giant JBS can also apply, The Washington Post reports.

— The aftermath of a major ICE raid: On Aug. 8, ICE conducted one of its largest worksite raids in years, arresting 118 suspected undocumented workers, mostly in Nebraska. A tomato greenhouse was targeted, along with a pork processing plant and a cattle company, among other worksites. Buzzfeed News has the story of how the raid divided a small Nebraska farm town.

— Could eating organic help prevent cancer? New research published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine found that people who frequently ate organic foods had a lower risk of developing cancer. In a study of about 69,000 French adults, researchers found that those who had the most organics in their diet were 73 percent less likely to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma and 21 percent less likely to develop postmenopausal breast cancer. Here are two takes: One from CNN, and a second from The New Food Economy.

About The Author

Ryan McCrimmon is an agriculture and food policy reporter and newsletter writer for POLITICO and POLITICO Pro. He was previously a tax and budget reporter for Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call, and before that he covered the Texas state legislature in Austin for the Texas Tribune. Ryan graduated from Northwestern University, where he studied journalism and Middle Eastern politics and history. He also covered Big Ten sports for the Northwestern News Network and Big Ten Digital Network. Ryan was born and raised in Charlottesville, Va.